Pursuing Truth and Transparency in America's Food System

Doreen Manchester

Hepatitis C and… Hugh Grant?

Monsanto’s legal team on Monday presented testimony from Dr. Alexandra Levine, a hematologist/oncologist with City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, seeking to convince the jury that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides was not a cause of Hardeman’s cancer, and that a more likely factor is the hepatitis C Hardeman had for many years. Levine testified that she has seen “many, many, thousands of patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” and she is in fact considered a specialist in that specific disease.

Judge Chhabria said last week that he would like to see this first phase of the trial wrapped up early this week, meaning the case should be with the jury soon. A verdict requires all six jurors to be unanimous in their finding regarding whether or not Hardeman’s exposure to Roundup “was a substantial factor” in causing his cancer. The judge will define for jurors what that means. (See Friday’s entry for more details.)

If the jury does not unanimously decide either for Hardeman or Monsanto then the case would be a mistrial. Chhabria has also said that if that happens he is considering retrying it in May.

If the jury finds for Hardeman on causation, the trial would quickly move into Phase II using the same jury. And that is where things will really start to get interesting. Hardeman’s attorneys plan to call several Monsanto executives for testimony, including former Monsanto Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant. Grant spent more than 35 years at the company and was named CEO in 2003. He led the company until its acquisition by Bayer AG last summer.

Additionally, lawyers for Hardeman plan to call Roger McClellan, editor of the scientific journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology (CRT), which published a series of papers in September 2016 that rebuked the finding by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) finding that glyphosate was a probable human carcinogen. The papers purported to be written by independent scientists who found that the weight of evidence showed the weed killer was unlikely to pose any carcinogenic risk to people.

However, internal Monsanto documents show that the papers were conceptualized from the outset as a strategy by Monsanto to discredit IARC. One of Monsanto’s top scientists not only reviewed the manuscripts but had a hand in drafting and editing them, though that was not disclosed by CRT.

Hardeman’s lawyers additionally said they plan to call Doreen Manchester, of CropLife America, the agrochemical industry’s lobbying organization. Manchester’s role at CropLife has been helping “lead federal and state litigation to support pesticide regulatory issues.”